ZCZC
BSS-26
JOY-VOTE-OPPOSITION 2 LAST DHAKA
“We have not wasted any opportunity to inform the Bangladeshi people that
we, the Awami League, are solely responsible for the positive changes in
their lives. While the opposition and ‘civil society’ were busy complaining
about problems, we were telling people how we were providing solutions,” said
Joy.
He said one of the favorite refrains of the ‘civil society’ was that AL has
the largest number of new voters in this election, who do not care about
political parties and would be anti-incumbent.
“What they did not consider was that these young men and women grew up
with the visible development work of our AL government making their lives
better and easier every year. Why would they vote for anyone else?, he added.
Mentioning his experience about conducting opinion polls, Joy said he has
been conducting opinion polls for the Awami League since 2013. He has studied
polling at Harvard and have interviewed and tried several polling teams in
Bangladesh before he found the one he uses. Prior to the 2014 elections, he
said, civil society were busy publicizing one poll after another how badly
the Awami League was going to lose.
“The fact is very few people and organizations in Bangladesh know how to
conduct an accurate opinion poll,” he added.
“We don’t do artificial polls to inflate our popularity because that does
not give us the information we need. We poll to know what our popularity is
for elections and so our polls need to be accurate,”
Final opinion poll two weeks before the elections showed that the AL would
receive between 57 percent-63 percent of the vote and the BNP would receive
between 19 percent-25 percent. So how did the AL receive 72 percent of the
vote? The opinion poll sampled the entire voters list in 300 constituencies,
all 104 million voters. But there is never 100 percent voter turnout and
elections were held in 298 seats, not 300.
The number of registered voters in the 298 seats was 103.5 million and an
80 percent turnout means 82.8 million people voted. The AL received about 60
million votes. 60 million out of 103.5 million is 58 percent of registered
voters in those seats. The AL actually received votes on the low side of the
poll’s margin of error, he explained.
About BNP’s polls campaign, he said there was their self-defeating election
campaign, or rather a lack of it. The first thing they did was bring out
Tariq Rahman to pick election nominees, he said, adding that all this managed
to do is remind people of Hawa Bhaban and Tariq Rahman’s corruption and
violence. To add fuel to the fire, he picked known and wanted criminals and
war criminals as candidates, he added.
Next, the message they kept sending out to their supporters until the last
minute was that they would boycott the elections, he said, adding, “If you
think your party is going to boycott, are you going to go out to vote? This
is what caused the drop in their voter turnout and hence, their low
percentage of the vote.”
Finally, the only message the BNP and Oikyofront had for the people of
Bangladesh is that the AL is bad. Given that the people could see the visible
improvements in their lives over the past decade of the AL government this
was an extremely tough sell.
He said Oikyofront’s figurehead Kamal Hossain did not even run in this
election. It is because Kamal Hossain knew he had absolutely no chance of
winning a seat for himself, he added.
Of course, Oikyofront surprised all. For the very first time in their
existence as a political non-entity, his Gono Forum has actually won not one,
but two seats!
If there was any rigging in these elections, how could an opposition party
that has never won a single seat win two?, Joy added.
“The truth is far simpler. If you’re a citizen and especially a youth who
sees a dynamic leader such as Sheikh Hasina developing and transforming the
country, it won’t matter how much mud the opposition slings. At the end of
the day you are going to vote for the party that is improving your life and
the country,” Joy concluded.
BSS/PR/TAN/AR/ARS/1955 hrs